1 Dad Transforms His Son’s Lunch Bags Into Works of Art, and We Can’t Stop Staring

When Dominick Cabalo noticed that his boy seemed a bit shy, he took a creative approach to help Nicholas make new friends.

Three years ago, the talented California dad started decorating Nicholas’s lunches with elaborate illustrations as a way to hopefully spark conversations with classmates. “I noticed he was a bit shy when it came to talking to others,” Dominick told The Huffington Post. “So by creating a piece of artwork to ‘break the ice,’ kids would come up to him and start talking and hopefully a conversation, or better yet, a new friendship, would start.”

Luckily for Nicholas, his dad isn’t just thoughtful but is also extremely talented. Dominick’s drawings of popular characters have continued to impress even now that Nicholas is in middle school. Over the past three years, Dominick estimates that he has illustrated about 400 brown bags while watching his son’s confidence flourish “Breakfast may be the most important meal of the day, but in our house, lunch is probably the most creative,” he shared on Imgur.

Since he knows that the bags will quickly be destroyed, Dominick tries to limit himself to spending under an hour a day on his pop culture-inspired creations.

“I drew this one after learning of Carrie Fisher’s death a couple weeks ago,” he explained. “Occasionally, I’ll do original characters or I’ll illustrate private jokes between him and me. But mostly, kids like established characters because then he can talk about it with his friends. He’s broken out of his shell because of this, and I like to think that I had a hand in helping him do this with these bags.”